The Funny Thing About Constants
by FrankandJoe3
Summary: It was too early to be awake, but Dick was already bleeding on Wally's sofa.


**Hello there, my duckies. If you want a fic written for you, or want me to update a certain fic that I haven't touched in years, or maybe you just feel like being a nice person, visit my profile and read the bold at the very top. I'm looking for a certain kind of fic that I just... can't find, and I'm getting kind of desperate. Thank you, if you decide to try and help me. If not, sorry for troubling you. **

**Part 2 of my "When the Hell Did I Find This?" series. This picture is by snowzapped on deviantart, titled "Patchjob". It was originally a Jay/Tim piece, but ah, I've got my own tea set over here to work with.**

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><p>Wally wasn't sure what time it was when the sound of the TV turning on out in the living room woke him up, but seeing that he had to turn on the bedside lamp to see himself out of the bedroom, he knew it was too goddamn early to be awake. He was exhausted, but he at least had the sense to throw on a robe before making his way down the hallway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.<p>

He wasn't sure who he was expecting as he made his way into the living room unarmed. Artemis, maybe? She wasn't supposed to be home for another few weeks, what with the trip she was on, doing something or other to earn her Comparative Literature major, but it was hard to believe in constants when you'd spent a good portion of your life fighting off the bad and trying to create those constants for others. It could've been Barry dropping off the college care package after work- he did have a key, after all. The only other alternate the redhead could think of was Bart, who stopped by from time-to-time to try and encourage him to join the team again, but it was a little late for that, or maybe a little early. He wasn't awake enough to do that kind of thinking.

Whoever he had been expecting, it definitely hadn't been Dick, and it most certainly hadn't been a bleeding Dick.

While his spark of panic succeeded in waking him up and running him to his friend's side, the eighteen year old cocked a smile his way and raised the hand not holding the remote in a wave.

"Hey, KF. Didn't mean to wake you up," Dick said with a bit of a strain in his voice.

Wally put a knee on the couch beside him and his emerald eyes darted over the other, and the bloody trail he had left from the partially open window to where he sat now.

"What the _hell _happened to you?" he asked in a rush, taking the remote from Dick's hand and chucking it across the room when his friend instead devoted his attention to the TV.

The remote hit a back section of the carpet and a stroke of luck had the power button hit and the TV blinking off. Dick looked from the TV to Wally's panic, taking some sort of offense, leading Wally to repeat his question in an angrier tone.

Dick's head raised, as though he were just hearing the question this second time, and he nonchalantly told Wally that he'd been shot. "And Bruce is still pissed at me, so I thought I'd stop by and see how you were doing. How _are _you doing, by the way? Almost forgot to ask."

Wally would've slapped Dick if he hadn't been so concerned about the whole, you know, bullet wound factor. He got to his feet and caught the other's bicep, pulling him up, too. He gauged the extent of the damage when Dick complied and stood, able to support himself, but the wince still very obviously there.

"You're a moron, Robbie," he sighed, tugging his friend after him.

Dick gave an annoyed little huff, but he followed behind with little other protest, sitting on the edge of the tub when Wally gestured him to.

"It's Nightwing now, you know," he chimed in dully, blue eyes following the other as he rummaged through the medicine cabinet.

"Yeah? Alright, 'Nightwing', off with the costume. Let me see the damage."

Nightwing already had a section of the suit undone, so he made quick work of what was left, peeling it down over his ankles until he was just in his boxers. He gave a little pained gasp as he eased the pressure off of the wound, running a hand fast through his hair and tugging to try and keep his mind from it. Wally looked over and gave a huff, having to avert his eyes with a small shake of his head. The bullet hadn't gotten very deep, thankfully, but it was still there, and there was a dark streak of blood trailing down the otherwise tan back from the entry wound.

"Isn't your suit Kevlar?" he asked, tapping out a few oxycodone into his palm and offering them over.

Dick dry-swallowed them with a little cringe. "More or less. Helps when I have it on."

Wally set the hydrogen peroxide back down on the counter as he looked over, brows drawing together quickly. He pointed the tweezers in hand at the other accusingly, and Dick shrugged lamely.

"I wasn't on the job. Some lady was getting mugged, so I stepped in with my civvies," he ran his free hand through the air as if to brush it off like no big deal, scooting up along the tub edge when Wally came his way with the supplies in hand. "It's what I get for being a good Samaritan."

The redhead set his supplies down on the floor beside the tub and sat behind the other, bringing up the hydrogen peroxide and a cotton ball.

"Then why did you have the suit on when you crawled in here? Bullet proof doesn't mean it pulls the bullets out."

Dick gave a dry laugh, immediately cut out with a shout he muffled fast behind clenched teeth as the cotton ball dabbed over the entry wound. He swore, very loudly, and pressed his palms into his eyes as the peroxide bubbled around the bullet.

"Had to put pressure on it," he grit out, giving a low groan as the pain persisted. "A jacket doesn't... do much to stop the bleeding, you know."

When he looked behind him, he caught the sad look in the emerald eyes and had to look down at the floor of the tub for a while. Wally traded the brown bottle for his pocket knife and caught Dick's shoulder tightly as he opened it.

"S'gonna hurt," he warned, and Dick nodded, because he already knew that.

The pale fingers tightened on his bare shoulder, and then the thumb pressed into his shoulder blade began to vibrate- a nervous tick that Wally had picked up years ago that he still wasn't aware he did, and Dick tensed in anticipation. Wally touched the blade there beside the bullet and the eighteen year old hissed between his teeth, hands clenched into tight fists. The redhead worked as gently as he remembered how to, and he cut the wound open wider, lengthening the width with single cuts and cutting an x over that.

It had a few more rivulets running over the expansion of flesh, and Dick swore heavily again, blowing out his breath in a long, pained exhale.

"Stop whining," Wally scolded as he dabbed some of the blood away.

He put the washcloth on the floor again and came back with his tweezers, testing to make sure they had a good enough grip by pulling loosely at some of his own arm hair.

"That's easy for you to say," Dick spat sourly, clenching and unclenching his toes in some kind of pattern intended to take his mind off the throbbing.

"You were just fine when you were bleeding all over my sofa," Wally reminded him, pushing down on his back until he took the hint and bent himself over his knees until his back was something close to flat.

The eighteen year old grumbled into the porcelain, but couldn't offer a retort. He just put his hands under his mouth and groaned into them as the redhead took the tweezers and forced back the flaps of skin.

"Speaking of you bleeding all over my sofa..." Wally initiated as casually as he could, "how did you get in?"

He set the tweezers back on the ground and straightened again, putting his fingers to either side of the bullet wound.

"Window," Dick bit out.

Slowly, Wally started to press on the skin, bringing his fingers closer together. Dick gave a little shout, muffled now by his hands.

"Climbed up the side of the building," he got out in a rush, punctuating it with a groan. "Picked the lock and climbed in."

The pressure on either side of the bullet had it lifting up out of the skin, and it broke the surface after some persuasion, followed by a rush of blood. Dick gave a tiny sigh, between the other various noises, and Wally moved the bullet to the ground. Dick turned his face so that his cheek rested against the porcelain, tears drying under his eyes from the pain.

"You're telling me that you climbed three stories with a bullet in your back?"

Wally got up and went back over to the cabinets, taking saline from the medicine kit and drenching a square of gauze in it. He watched Dick in his peripheral, who seemed a bit sheepish at the mention.

"The adrenaline," he mumbled, along with some other words that got lost in the porcelain.

Wally lifted an eyebrow, giving a little hum as he nodded, obviously not having a word of it. He came back over and guided the skin back over the wound the best he could before pressing the gauze pad against it.

"So you're telling me you stopped a mugging at three in the morning and rushed over here to watch TV on my couch?"

He caught Dick's shoulder and guided him to sit up enough that he could wrap dry gauze around his chest, up until the pressure was enough to hold the saline to the wound and hopefully stop the bleeding for the night. Dick wouldn't quite hold his eyes.

"It's only one," he finally said, a little stiffly.

Wally laughed in disbelief and shook his head. "Come on, man. Give me something. Quid pro whatever, right?"

"Quid pro quo," Dick murmured, sitting up the rest of the way.

Wally waved his hand, as if to say 'whatever', and got up from the rim, beginning to put away the supplies. Dick moved to help him, but the redhead shook his head, so Dick stayed put.

"Look, my house was definitely out of the way. The adrenaline was definitely gone by the time you broke in here. Why go to all the trouble?"

The conversation found itself at a stalemate until Wally had cleaned the bathroom and brought back a shirt and sweatpants, offering them over. Dick slid them on carefully, and thanked him for all the effort, getting to his feet with some effort of his own. Wally put a hand out to stop him before he could leave the room, though.

"I'll make you a deal," he started, and Dick stepped back, interested. "I'll let you sleep here on the couch for as long as it takes you and Bruce to get on even terms... if you'll give me a straight answer."

Dick frowned, but his interest still remained, so he nodded. "Alright."

"Why did you come here?"

The eighteen year old squirmed a little, but he nodded again, looking down at Wally's knees with a little huff.

"I..." he rubbed at his opposite elbow carefully, giving a sheepish grin. "I missed you, I guess. Ever since you and Artemis got together, you've been blowing me off. It wasn't too deep and I couldn't exactly go to the hospital in my suit, so I figured I'd... stop by. If you weren't here, I was just going to take care of it myself."

Wally stared for the longest time, just staring right through the other, and then he turned away, running a hand threw his hair.

"Christ," he murmured, shaking his head. "You could've rang the doorbell like a normal person instead of climbing three stories with a bullet in your back and bleeding all over my sofa."

Dick crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the back of the other's head.

"Well, _excuse me _for bleeding on your sofa," he muttered under his breath.

Wally turned back and his brows were furrowed, frown tugging at his lips. "Hey, come on, I didn't mean it like that."

Dick managed a smile with a breath of a laugh. He nodded, because he knew, and he tilted his head in the direction of the living room. When Wally caught on, he nodded and led the way back down the hall. He dug out the blankets from the closet and put two near the foot of the couch, tossing off the decorative pillows and bringing back one from the bedroom.

As Dick settled in on the couch, getting under the blankets and being careful not to disturb the dressings, he apologized for the blood spill and promised to replace the couch. Wally waved it off.

"It's fine, Dick. I'm just glad you're alright."

They talked for a while longer, just playing catch-up that felt more natural than anything the younger had known in a while, until Wally found himself with a yawn and remembered the time. He had class in the morning, he recalled, and Dick understood. They exchanged good-nights and Wally shut out the light on his way back down the hall to his room.

The darkness of the room laid over Dick like a third blanket, but he wasn't getting any heat from it. Now, he was shrouded in little more than his thoughts, coming back to the rhythmic throb in his back from time-to-time. It was a constant ache, and it had him coming back to all other things constant.

How many times had he texted Wally in the past month alone? Tried to get a hold of him, tried to call him only to receive his voice mail? If he had come up to the doorbell, there wouldn't have been anyone home, and he might as well have bled out on the steps. It had taken a bullet to get his best friend to talk to him.

When did a 'best friend forever' turn into a 'best friend when convenient'?

His whole life had been a cat and mouse game for something to lean on, for someone to depend on, and that was hard enough in itself in a world so full of death and tragedy. He'd had the team in his teenage years, and together, they had created the constants he had so desperately craved for everyone else. When the team became a constant, it too crumbled and Dick had been left sifting through the shards for something to hold on to.

That seemed to be the funny thing about constants- they were that for everyone but those who made them.

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><p><strong>-F.J. III<strong>


End file.
